Would You Eat This Part of the Chicken?

If you're getting a little tired of eating chicken breasts, drumsticks, and wings, there's a new option from the same bird. When you find out what part of the chicken some folks are eating, you might flip a feather.

Usually, when we find a chicken feather in a piece of fried chicken, it's by accident and it tends to freak us out and send the whole meal back to the kitchen. But check this out. Now people are eating chicken feathers on purpose because they're supposed to be a great source of protein.

Some of our Treasure Valley neighbors have gotten into raising backyard chickens recently as part of a growing trend, and we wonder if they're raising the birds for the feathers as well as the eggs. Chicken feathers can be 80 to 90 percent protein, and for people looking to build lean muscle mass, the feathers are becoming a hot-ticket item.

And before you think this is just too weird, you should know that you don't have to take a fist full of chicken feathers, dip them in ketchup, and eat them that way. Feathers are too hard to digest in their original form and plus it just looks weird shoveling the insides of a pillowcase into your mouth. So they're breaking the feathers down into a solution to form an edible protein mix and getting the feathers into our bloodstream that way. Sound appetizing?

Some male cyclists tried the supplement and they increased their lean body mass during the study. I don't know if I want "lean body mass" badly enough to eat chicken feathers, but it's working for some people who are putting chicken feather supplements into shakes and smoothies.

I always thought it was strange that my grandma loved the gizzard so much and fought everyone in the family for it when she was frying chicken. That took a little getting used to, and maybe this feather-eating will too.